


In the In-Between

by Zetared



Series: The Laugher 'Verse [2]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Fluff, Lackadaisical Use of Pronouns, M/M, Shameless Smut, Shapeshifter sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 19:18:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4799249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zetared/pseuds/Zetared
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we've lived. After all, […] we're only mortal.” – Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: Generations</p><p>A sequel to In the Twilight Edge, composed in thanks to all of you who have so kindly kudos’ed and commented on the work since its posting. </p><p>Warning: PWP</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the In-Between

The great shifting cosmos continued on its never-ending journey, a perpetual motion, onward and around again, cyclical and regenerating, a massive ouroboros consuming its own metaphorical tail. This was, of course, a perspective on the universe that could only be achieved via immortality and omniscience. Nothing quite like godly power to help give one insight into the bigger picture, as it were. Even after several centuries of watching the galaxies dance, Jean-Luc Picard couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it all.

“There is nothing new under the sun. It’s all been done before,” Q intoned with faked solemnity. He had just appeared behind Picard and now reached out, surrounding Picard’s…essence, as it were…with his own. It was a bit like a hug but also nothing quite like that at all. It was difficult, at times, to process his current existence within the parameters of his previous life.

“The concept of renewal in the universe, of a cosmic reset, is common in many cultures,” Picard agreed faintly. “I just never realized how much of that belief was anchored in truth.”

“They don’t just suck it out of the ground, no,” Q drawled. He gave Picard a little squeeze to take some of the bite out of his sarcasm. “What are you doing out here, anyway? It seems like whenever I lose track of you, here you are, staring at the giant cosmic spin cycle.”

Picard snorted softly and relaxed into the other entity’s embrace. He kept his eyes—or, rather, his perception?—on the cosmos, however, watching the slow and captivating motion of the stars. “I enjoy looking at it.”

“Oh, please. Don’t kid a kidder, Jean-Luc. You don’t like looking at that thing one bit. It gives you the heebie-jeebies.”

“If you know so much, why don’t you tell me why I’m here?”

Q’s presence took on a familiar, solid shape. Picard followed suit unconsciously, matching Q’s dark-haired Human-esque form with his own long-lost face. Q sighed softly and rested his chin on Picard’s shoulder, digging in so hard that Picard felt a facsimile of a twinge. “You’re scared of it, _mon ami_. And if there is one aspect of your unique personality that you have most stubbornly retained all of these years, it is your foolhardy _need_ to face your deepest fears head on.”

A silence stretched between them as Picard tried and failed to deny it. “I wish you didn’t know me so well,” Picard sighed.

“Oh, cheer up, sweetcheeks. There’s still _plenty_ about you that is naught but a giant question mark to me.”

“Even after all of this time?”

“After all of this time and until the end of it, I imagine. Not that ‘the end of it,’ is actually a very likely scenario, considering.” Q gestured expansively toward the ever-churning cycle of existence before them. It did look a bit like an ancient front-loading washing machine, now that he mentioned it. “Now, come on.”

“’Come on’? Where are we going?”

“Somewhere much less dull than this place, I assure you. Go on, Jean-Luc, you’ll like it. I promise.”

“Cross your heart and hope to die?” Picard intoned, dryly.

Q rolled his eyes and crossed his fingers over his non-existent heart—well, that wasn’t entirely correct; the former god’s heart did _exist_ , it was just being held safely in a temple on an island on a planet several thousands of lightyears away. “Scout’s honor. Let’s go.”

Picard spared one last glance for the motion of the ever-expanding universe, but in the end he nodded his agreement and took Q’s hand in his own, ready to be lead along to whatever strange adventure Q had in mind this time.

\--

Picard was surprised to find solid ground under his feet. In fact, he was surprised to find feet at all and not just a relatively accurate psychic impression of them. He was wearing sandals of leather and tight-woven fibers. Baffled, Jean-Luc wiggled his toes and glanced reflexively over at his persistent companion.

Q’s attention was fixated on his own arms. He frowned a bit, flailing his limbs about until his hands managed to successfully escape the luminous folds of the light, crimson-hued robe he wore. A glance down at himself showed that Picard, too, was wearing a similar cut of robe, though his was dyed a deep blue.

“Where are we?” Picard demanded, extracting his hands from his sleeves with much more grace than his friend.

The area around them was remote with nothing but a long span of sandy beach and an ocean in low-tide to their left. To their right, the beach surrendered itself to massive cliffs of pink-white stone. It was, admittedly, a beautiful place. The heat of the day had not yet permeated the cool, salty breeze coming off the water, and the sky was cloudless and a perfect blue.

“A planet called Attica, on the coast of the planet’s smallest continent. This is one of what the locals affectionately call The Pink Beaches. From this moment until we tire of it, this little beach and the little dwelling nearby is ours to call home.”

Picard blinked in surprise. In their time together as equal beings, Q had shown him many marvels in the known and unknown cosmos. From time to time, they had, indeed, appeared planet-side to silently and invisibly observe certain phenomena and the evolution of interesting species. This was the first instance in Picard’s recent memory, however, that Q had plans that were so undisguised and…domestic.

“We’re just…staying?”

“We’re taking a vacation,” Q corrected mildly. He leaned on Picard’s shoulder, toeing off his own sandals one by one. He sighed with satisfaction as his toes sunk into the sand.

“Do we…require…a vacation?” Picard questioned, further puzzled.

“I think _you_ do, yes.”

“Q, I don’t--.”

Q turned Picard toward himself with a gentle pull, gripping the man’s other shoulder along with the first. Q met Picard eye for eye, the entity’s expression as serious as Picard had ever had cause to see it. “ _Mon amour_ ,” Q said, tone soft, “For all that you’re like me, now, you were just a plain old Human mortal, once, and frankly I think the culture shock is starting to get to you. You need a break. Something mundane and pleasant is exactly what the omnipotent entity ordered, believe me.”

Picard frowned, a little wounded at the insinuation that he wasn’t adapting well to his new state of being. “Q, I--.”

Q, never one to shy away from a good interruption, gave Picard’s shoulders a shake. “Jean-Luc, _please_. It’ll be enjoyable. I _promise_.” And the way Q’s vocal register dropped just so made Jean-Luc’s heart—not mechanical, now, not even _matter,_ anymore—flutter.

Picard gazed across Q’s shoulders and took in the gentle crash of waves against the fine, pale sand of the beach. Overhead, a flying mammal of some sort gave a perfect, musical trill. “Well. I suppose it couldn’t hurt.”

\--

A quaint cottage sat half a mile down the length of the beach, nestled between two especially large pinkish rocks at the base of the cliffs. Q pulled Picard along behind him, chattering brightly about tranquility and privacy and how the curtains so perfectly coordinated with the tan-hued walls. Though Picard couldn’t be certain of anything when Q was involved, he gathered from the stream of one-sided conversation that the entity had brought the cozy structure into being himself.

“We can change anything you please, of course,” Q continued on, snapping the center-piece on the tiny dining room table from something akin to tiger-lilies into flowers more like daisies, instead. “I’m not married to the kitchen décor, honestly. The importance of a good granite countertop goes without saying, but I really couldn’t decide between the seafoam or the slate black, and in the end I went with charcoal gray, and no matter what I do to it, it just doesn’t look _right_ , does it?”

Picard, amused and more than a little overwhelmed, followed Q like a shadow from room to room, learning far more than he wished about the difficulties of forming the perfect upholstery from the nebulous ether from which Q apparently snapped these things up. (Picard himself didn’t bother with these little tricks, though Q had once expressed a keen interest in teaching him. The most Jean-Luc ever did to exercise his own apparently unlimited powers was to create an appearance of his old, familiar Human shape when he felt the illusion was needed).

 In the bedroom, Q’s fussy indecision evaporated. He spoke with confidence about his decisions regarding the soft, springy carpet and the large, comfortable bed and its solid wood boards. The room was decorated in dark, earthy tones. The current light was dim and soothing, though Q assured him in his rapid-paced prattle that the intensity of the light could be modified with a simple computer command. The bedroom lead into an equally perfect bathing room with a large, enticing inset bath and mirrors in interesting places. Picard’s amusement won out and he smiled widely into one of the large, clear mirrors. The layout and design of these rooms guaranteed perfect comfort and hinted at sultry intimacy at all once. Q may have been uncertain regarding the atmosphere of a perfect kitchen, but his understanding of rest and sex was unparalleled. Typical, perhaps, of god who had once reveled in joy and hedonism as much as tricks and cunning.

Q hovered in the bedroom, still speaking, but Picard had stopped listening quite a while ago. Jean-Luc turned to his friend, companion, and lover and pulled the taller man toward himself until their bodies pressed close and warm. “Q,” Jean-Luc murmured, fingers pressing into the wide sleeves of the entity’s robe, his hands sliding up Q’s arms.

Q blinked, falling suddenly still and silent. “Jean-Luc?”

“It’s perfect,” Picard assured, reaching up and giving Q’s arms a gentle tug to pull him down into a kiss.

\--

As Picard struggled to shuck the voluminous robes away from Q’s squirming form—there were many things that Picard couldn’t bring himself to do any way but hands-on—Q stepped back, directing them both toward the waiting bed.

As they stepped, Q kept flickering, changing from one form to another in a manner that was as familiar as it was exasperating.

“Q, settle,” Picard ordered, distracting the entity by pulling him into another kiss. The lips under his own were thin and a gently furred. There were fangs under those lips and Picard didn’t protest to feel them scrape gently against his bottom lip while Q purred low in his Caitian chest.

Picard pushed the entity down on the bed and by the time Q landed, bouncing gently on the mattress, he had shifted again. The new form was Romulan and female. Picard made a soft sound of victory as he finally found a clasp at the shoulder of the robe and flicked it open with his thumb. The rich red fabric slid down around Q’s tanned-brown shoulders and Picard paused in his mission of baring Q to kiss down the smooth Romulan neck and down to Q’s breasts. He pressed his teeth into the flesh, leaving marks in vivid green as he went. Picard pulled on the open neckline of the robes and hummed in thanks as Q lifted her arms free from the pooling fabric, baring her entire torso, at least. Picard pressed Q back against the many pillows and ran his tongue thickly against the hard peak of Q’s nipple. The entity jerked and gasped, her feminine voice made rough and husky with desire. Picard was not surprised when the form under him shifted into another.

“Q,” Picard huffed, smiling as he kissed his way up the defined ridges of the Cardassian neck. Q squirmed and Picard rolled his eyes a bit, biting down at mid-ridge, a well-known erogenous zone in the species. Q’s scaly face bared his teeth in a grin of satisfaction, the scales around his eyes tinging a bit more blue as a sign of his arousal.

“Do make a decision, please. I’ve no objection to exploration, but it’s damn difficult to keep up.”

Q laughed, and the condescending, Cardassian tone of it made Picard’s spine prickle in a way he couldn’t quite explain. “You could play, too, for once.”

“No, thank you. I like my body as it is.”

Q rolled his eyes expansively and Picard hovered over him, watching in amusement as the entity’s face took on several forms while he spoke. A dark-eyed Betazoid, a pale-green Orion, a spotted Trill, and a tentacled species Picard couldn’t name all starred up at him, accessing. “I like my body, too. But I also like these.”

“Which is all well and good, my friend, but _pick_ one, would you please? I hardly know where to kiss,” he paused, kissing the tentacle being’s closest arm lightly, “and where to bite,” he nibbled gently at the Trill’s spotted shoulder, amused as Q worked his way backward through the most recent forms. “And where to,” and he slid a hand under the pooling robe over the Orion woman’s lap and rubbed his thumb firmly against the smooth, wet lips of her, teasing until Q’s breath was coming short and Picard’s fingers were dripping wet. The room was full of Orion pheromones, causing Picard’s blood to thrum in his veins. He hummed softly to feel the Betazoid’s telepathy stroke over his mind, sending a jolt of pleasure down his spine, warmth pooling in his own cock. “Q,” he rumbled in a warning tone.

Q sighed softly, resigned, but the Human form that appeared under him seemed more than willing, judging by the flush of Q’s pale cheeks and the throbbing length of his cock against Picard’s fingers. Picard adjusted obligingly and wrapped his dripping, slippery hand against Q’s flesh, his strokes long and loose under the warm, damp tent of the half-fallen robe.

Picard kissed those familiar, flushed cheeks and nuzzled gently against the soft brown curls of Q’s hair all while leaning forward, forcing Q to brace one of his legs over Picard’s shoulder. The extent of the bend might have been painful for any normal Human being, but Q merely groaned in satisfaction at the pull of his Human muscles, taking as much pleasure from the intriguing construction of the body he inhabited as from the act of sex itself.

Jean-Luc, for his part, panted softly against Q’s ear, breathing in time to his hand as it stroked. Q moaned low in his throat, already brought near to release by the way Picard had so mercilessly teased the Orion’s form before. Picard answered the noise in kind and picked up the pace, his breath coming short and quick as his fingers tightened around Q’s warm, velvety flesh. A few strokes later, Q cried out, his body going rigid, his expression twisted in that odd mingling of pleasure and desperation as he came. Picard stroked him gently through the aftershocks and then pulled away, wiping his hand on the red robe before he untangled it from Q’s legs and tossed it carelessly to the floor.

As Picard resituated himself over his lover, he carded his fingers gently through the entity’s sweaty locks, smiling as Q pressed into the gentle touch. Picard trailed his fingers over Q’s lips, pinked and a little swollen from kissing. “You are beautiful.”

Q’s blissful expression took on his usual sardonic edge. “You always say that,” he accused.

“I always mean it,” Picard replied, eyebrows raised slightly.

Q lifted his own hand and cupped Jean-Luc’s cheek, dark eyes fixed on Picard’s own. “You’d think after a lifetime and several centuries, this would have lost appeal.”

“It hasn’t for me. Has it for you?” Picard doubted it, but it was always prudent to check in.

Q’s grin was devilish as he slid his free hand between their bodies--one naked and sweat soaked, the other still encumbered by billowing robes—and gave Picard’s aching cock a squeeze through the soft, blue fabric. Jean-Luc groaned softly, his hips reflexively grinding up against Q’s palm. The quiet shushing sound of the fabric was all the noise in the room for a few long seconds. The rough friction was both maddening and delicious, and though there was a time when Picard might have felt embarrassment over such a wanton display of lust, he had no such qualms now.

“No,” Q murmured, voice low and rumbling, “It hasn’t lost its appeal.”

Q sat up in the bed a bit more and snapped Picard’s robes—and his own from the floor—out of existence. Picard would never get used to be suddenly laid bare to the air, no matter how many centuries passed between them. Q’s obliging hand was no longer where Picard wished it, and it took all of his pride not to whimper at the loss. Q grinned anyway, well aware of what a dirty game he played.

Q pulled his lover into a warm embrace and kissed him, deep and slow, teasing the man’s lips between his teeth only to ease the sting with the soft brush of his tongue. Jean-Luc moaned softly against Q’s mouth, his own kisses becoming more sloppy and frantic the more time passed in silent promise between them. Q’s smile was smug as he pulled away, but he took pity on his lover and pressed against his chest, turning them both around in one smooth motion so that Picard was laid out flat on his back and Q hovered over him, a wicked gleam in his eye. Jean-Luc’s cock twitched at that look alone, his blood-starved brain well aware of what that expression promised.

There was a time—after their first meeting but before their first intimate encounter—in which Picard would have stipulated that Q would be a most selfish kind of lover. Q was, after all, pompous, self-interested, and generally very assured of his own importance. These were not unusual qualities in an all-powerful entity who had styled himself a god. Picard had expected selfishness, and he had deemed the possibility acceptable despite himself. In the end, however, his assumptions had made quite an ass of him. Q may be self-interested, but his arrogance provided ample motivation to prove himself capable of putting another’s pleasure before his own.

Q’s lips were soft and damp against Jean-Luc’s skin as he kissed his way down the man’s neck and chest, pausing to lavish one of the man’s nipples with an expert tongue until Jean-Luc was writhing under him, moaning the letter of his name so that the single syllables melted together, strange to the entity’s own ears. Q pressed a chaste kiss against each of Picard’s ribs and pressed warm kisses against the soft, yielding flesh of his belly, following that faintly ginger trail of hair down.

Picard’s cock was flushed dark, the flared head damp with pre-come. Q didn’t hesitate to lap his tongue thickly against the head of Jean-Luc’s cock, satisfied when the man cursed in fervent French, finally really putting his old Human heritage to good use. Q mouthed gently around Picard’s cock, mindful of his current form’s prominent front teeth. He hallowed his cheeks and bobbed like a pro—which, after several thousands of years as a god of pleasure, he was--pleased at the way the head of Picard’s organ rubbed against his throat.

Jean-Luc’s moans of Q’s name and his sharp French expletives dwindled into nonsense syllables and broken pleas for more. Q pressed his fingers hard into the curve of the man’s hips to keep him from bucking hard. He’d leave bruises behind, no doubt, but bruises were easily banished by beings such as themselves…if they so choose.

Jean-Luc came with a soft, strangled whimper and Q swallowed gamely before pulling back, cheeks rosy and brow beaded with fresh sweat. He looked smug and manic and thoroughly debauched, and if Picard had been in any right state of mind, he might have thought unbidden of the ancient poet Byron, whose own rosy-cheeks, tousled locks, and devilish gleam had been capture so well by the artists of history.

As it was, all Picard could think of was the sense of hazy contentment that had so heavily fallen upon him. He barely noticed as Q stretched out alongside him, throwing one long arm over his chest and pressing his face against Jean-Luc’s shoulder.

Later, as his faculties returned to him, Jean-Luc Picard, former mortal and member of the Human race, stared at the ceiling and ran his fingers through the hair of his lover while thinking scattered thoughts about the cyclical nature of the universe and the ever-repeating nature of all things.

It didn’t seem quite so monstrous, anymore. After all, there were such _good_ things in the ever-refreshing universe…and they never, ever had to end.


End file.
